News and stories

On a recent travel to Indonesia, a "Living Letters" team representing the member churches of the World Council of Churches (WCC) discovered seeds of hope for a world without violence. In Sulawesi, the Moluccas, West Timor and other islands they saw how the churches were working side by side with their communities and those of other faiths to bring peace and the improvement of all people.

The remains of flattened buildings at the Christian University of the Moluccas in Indonesia are a grim reminder of conflict. During 1999-2004 hundreds of Christians and Muslims died and millions of dollars worth of property was destroyed in a tragedy which more sober leaders and members of both faith communities regret.

More than 20 years of advocacy work for Sudan on behalf of the churches won to Marina Peter, European coordinator of the Sudan Ecumenical Forum, a decoration from the German government and a deep sense of the complexities of a country whose size is almost that of Western Europe and has seen internal wars over the last 50 years. Only addressing Sudan "in its complexity and as a whole" will bring about peace, she says.

West Papuans have yet to recover from the trauma of human rights violations. At the same time continuing in-migration is threatening to marginalize them in their resource-rich province, an ecumenical team from the World Council of Churches (WCC) told top-level Indonesian government officials.

The concrete wall behind the altar of the Christian Church of Central Sulawesi in Palu, Indonesia still bears marks from two bullets just three inches to the right of a framed cross-stitch portrait of Jesus Christ.

Christians working against violence are convening a major symposium this weekend on the responsibility to protect people exposed to violence, abuse and genocide and its relation to peacemaking.

Churches working for peace in Indonesia - a country which over the last decades had to cope with repeated outbreaks of ethnic and religious conflicts, the integration of internally displaced people as well as refugees from outside its borders - will receive a solidarity visit of an international ecumenical delegation sent by the World Council of Churches (WCC) from 17 to 24 July.

Climate change, its causes and consequences as well as the role of churches and the worldwide ecumenical family will be at the center of a 7-14 July visit to the Pacific region by the World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia.

"It's always good to see what can come of an idea," says Rev. Barbara Rudolph, executive director of the Council of Christian Churches in Germany (ACK). On this beautiful summer Sunday, she is delighted to hear how the local project in Cologne of the campaign Weißt Du wer ich bin? ("Do you know who I am?") has developed. The nationwide campaign was launched by the ACK, the Central Council of Jews, the Central Council of...

After "what is now being described as a deeply flawed election", the World Council of Churches (WCC) has called for the protection of the population "against increased and continued violence", an "intensified international monitoring of the situation" and the provision of humanitarian aid. The WCC also issued a warning concerning the possible consequences of economic sanctions.